Endianness: Different Processors

Endianness refers to the way data is represented in memory by different processors. For details about endianness you can refer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness

We will run below code on two different CPU architectures, Intel and MIPS
*******Start of Code endi.c ********
#include
#include

int main()
{
        int magiclhtona, magiclntoha, magiclhton1, magiclntoh1, htonli2, htonsi2, ntohli2, ntohsi2, htonli6, htonsi6, ntohli6, ntohsi6;
        magiclhtona = htonl(0xa1b2c3d4);
        magiclntoha = ntohl(0xa1b2c3d4);

        magiclhton1 = htonl(0x1f8b0800);
        magiclntoh1 = ntohl(0x1f8b0800);

        htonli2 = htonl(25);
        htonsi2 = htons(25);
        ntohli2 = ntohl(25);
        ntohsi2 = ntohs(25);

        htonli6 = htonl(65535);
        htonsi6 = htons(65535);
        ntohli6 = ntohl(65535);
        ntohsi6 = ntohs(65535);

        printf("magiclhtona=%p magiclntoha=%p,magiclhton1=%p, magiclntoh1=%p, htonli2=%d htonsi2=%d ntohli2=%d ntohsi2=%d, htonli6=%d, htonsi6=%d, ntohli6=%d, ntohsi6=%d\n", magiclhtona, magiclntoha, magiclhton1, magiclntoh1,htonli2, htonsi2, ntohli2, ntohsi2, htonli6, htonsi6, ntohli6, ntohsi6);
}
    return 0;

*******Endof Code endi.c ********
To understand the output we should know what is he endianness of the Processors we are using
Intel        Little Endian
MIPS     Big Endian

Output on Intel processor
[praveen]# ./endi
magiclhtona=0xd4c3b2a1 magiclntoha=0xd4c3b2a1,magiclhton1=0x88b1f, magiclntoh1=0x88b1f, htonli2=419430400 htonsi2=6400 ntohli2=419430400 ntohsi2=6400, htonli6=-65536, htonsi6=65535, ntohli6=-65536, ntohsi6=65535

Output on MIPS processor
praveen# ./endi
magiclhtona=0xa1b2c3d4 magiclntoha=0xa1b2c3d4,magiclhton1=0x1f8b0800, magiclntoh1=0x1f8b0800, htonli2=25 htonsi2=25 ntohli2=25 ntohsi2=25, htonli6=65535, htonsi6=65535, ntohli6=65535, ntohsi6=65535
praveen#

Modify endi.c source file by adding below code
        int htonli8 = htonl(65538);
        int htonsi8 = htons(65538);
        int ntohli8 = ntohl(65538);
        int ntohsi8 = ntohs(65538);
       printf("htonli8=%d, htonsi8=%d, ntohli8=%d, ntohsi8=%d\n", htonli8, htonsi8, ntohli8, ntohsi8);

Output on Intel Processor
htonli8=33554688, htonsi8=512, ntohli8=33554688, ntohsi8=512

Output on MIPS Processor
htonli8=65538, htonsi8=2, ntohli8=65538, ntohsi8=2

Hope this will help someone somewhere to understand endianness on different Processors.


Other articles on C language
http://darshanams.blogspot.in/2011/09/building-single-binary-from-multiple-c.html
http://darshanams.blogspot.in/2011/07/message-queues-introduction.html